“PERVERSE:” A history lesson from Professor Jacobson.

POLITICO: David Gregory under investigation, out of headlines.

Just remember, if you’ve seen someone violate DC gun laws you can file a police report online.

SO IF YOU’RE ANTI-CLIMATE-CHANGE, ARE YOU ANTI-EVOLUTION? Climate change may have driven evolution, scientists believe.

NOW IF THEY WERE TEA PARTIERS, THIS WOULD BE NEWS: Greenwich Village couple busted with cache of weapons, bombmaking explosives: sources. “The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.” At least they weren’t drawing comic books.

HOW TO TICKET a driverless vehicle. “Under Nevada law, the person who tells a self-driving vehicle to drive becomes its driver. Unlike the driver of an ordinary vehicle, that person may send text messages. However, they may not ‘drive’ drunk—even if sitting in a bar while the car is self-parking. Broadening the practical and economic appeal of self-driving vehicles may require releasing their human users from many of the current legal duties of driving.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Health Care, Housing, Education Worse When Government Helps.

MORE ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC FROM AN ALLEGEDLY RESPECTABLE NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST:

• Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.

• Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.

This kind of talk makes me want to buy an assault rifle. Or twelve. And really, dude, the fact that you’re angry doesn’t give you some sort of a pass from the norms of civil society. Or, if it does, be prepared to tolerate a lot of things that you’ll find intolerable. Because, you know, a lot of people are angry.

TWITCHY: The Top 20 Deleted Tweets Of The Year.

NOW THERE’S A SURPRISE: Obama lists those to blame for the fiscal cliff and he’s not one of them. “The Democrat also didn’t have time, apparently, to mention that the distasteful automatic budget cuts called sequestration were the idea of his White House.”

CHANGE: U.S., Canada, and Oz Prepare for the Asian Gas Wars.

Australia has designs on becoming the leading natural gas supplier for not only Asia, but the entire world. Indeed, the country has the offshore resources and the thirsty markets nearby in Asia to pass Qatar as the world’s top supplier of LNG.

However, Australia’s march towards energy superpowerdom is beginning to run into domestic problems—and new competition. Rising labor costs and high prices in Australia’s booming economy are making it unexpectedly difficult for the Aussies to export their gas and now energy-hungry Asian countries like China and Japan are starting to eye alternative and equally cheap gas from North America. . . .

Whether it’s Australian, American, or Canadian gas that wins the race to the Asian market (and most likely, there is plenty of demand for all three), a few things seem clear:

(1) The long era in which the Middle East was the global supplier of hydrocarbons is coming to an end.

(2) A global switch from coal to natural gas is one of the most practical ways available for civilization to begin the transition to a new kind of energy market. Greens take note.

(3) Asia is not going to be self sufficient in either energy or food in the 21st century, which, from the standpoint of those who hope to see the world becoming a more peaceful and economically integrated place, is a very good thing. The rising Asian powers will need a healthy, stable and secure global system to feed their people and run their economies.

Indeed.

ASK DR. HELEN: Why Are Republicans More Despondent than Liberals were in 2004?

SHOCKER: Death of Tea Party appears exaggerated, members in House appear to hold key fiscal vote.

AT AMAZON, Year-End Deals In Tools & Home Improvement.

Also, today only: Timex Ironman Race Trainer Digital Heart Rate System (Men’s and Women’s), $89.95 (40% off).

ARRESTED FOR “plotting to celebrate Christmas.”

John Gibson, call your office!

BENGHAZI: What’s Happening to Hillary? Only a clod would say the clot is a plot! “The suppression of information — the site of the clot — suggests 2 radically different theories: 1. fakery/exaggeration to evade testimony, or 2. something horribly serious. I read Sepkowitz to exclude the middle ground.”

MORT ZUCKERMAN: Brace For An Avalanche Of Unfunded Debt: The fiscal cliff isn’t as scary as the looming deficit and debt crisis about to swamp the country.

The greatest fiscal challenge to the U.S. government is not just its annual deficit but its total liabilities. Our federal balance sheet does not include the unfunded social insurance obligations of Medicare, Social Security, and the future retirement benefits of federal employees. Only in the small print of the financial statements do you get some idea of the enormous size of the unfunded commitments. Today the estimated unfunded total is more than $87 trillion, or 550 percent of our GDP. And the debt per household is more than 10 times the median family income.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Make your plans accordingly.

ANDREW KLAVAN LIKED ZERO DARK THIRTY.

The two and a half hour film does contain one scene in which a White House official says, in effect, “The president is a thoughtful, analytical man who won’t pull the trigger quickly because he doesn’t want to make the same mistake George W. Bush made with the WMD in Iraq.” That’s the sort of political reading we expect from Hollywood, and Bigelow and Boal make sure to get it in.

But the rest of the movie is a deadpan tribute to the intelligence agents and Navy Seals who slow by slow tracked this bad man down and sent him to meet a Maker very unlike the one he was expecting. Indeed, some could see the overall film as a reprimand to a president who took so much credit for what was clearly the work of men and women laboring through two administrations. Plus the movie graphically depicts how that work involved interrogation techniques that Obama ultimately prohibited — a prohibition which clearly hobbled the search.

Read the whole thing.

LABOR: Teamster Local Challenges Obama On NLRB Recess Appointments.

JEFF SOYER: Old Time Radio: New Year’s Edition. “Here’s a collection of Old Time Radio shows themed around the New Year. There were many choices but I try to use ones with at least decent to very good audio and a good story.”

TWO OLD GERMANS, drinking coffee.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE COURTROOM: The Big Top beats an abusive lawsuit by the ASPCA. “The case is an example of how the ASPCA has become increasingly politicized and much different from the nice outfit that looks out for the well-being of homeless and lovable dogs and cats.” This is true of many ostensibly warm-and-fuzzy do-gooding nonprofits.

UPDATE: Reader Alan Cole writes: “After recent news broke about the big judgment against ACPCA in the circus elephant case, I have been noticing lots more TV commercials soliciting contributions to ASPCA — to rescue poor abused doggies & kitties & horsies, etc., from harm. By me, Truth In Advertising would dictate that ASPCA disclose that what it really needs the money for is to pay $9,300,000 to Ringling Bros.” Heh. I’ve noticed those ads too.

BEST GUN SALESMAN IN HISTORY: Obama Promises 2013 Gun-Grab Bill; Warns ‘There Will Be Resistance.’ You don’t know the half of it, Barry.

But of course, he can count on grassroots support like this: Lone Picketer Protests Gun Show In Denver.

UPDATE: Perhaps this is all a head-fake, designed to get as many Americans armed as possible as part of the secret preparations for alien attack. Sadly, that would make more sense than what they’re actually doing . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

WELL, THERE’S AN ADMISSION IN HERE SOMEWHERE: Mike Seidman: Let’s Give Up On The Constitution. “Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?”

I dunno. Does this mean we should ignore Roe? Or Miranda? And Baker v. Carr? And if the Constitution is this obsolete and “evil,” then maybe secession isn’t off the table after all? . . . .

UPDATE: I have some more concrete suggestions for constitutional improvement here. You can see me talk about them in this keynote speech from last year’s Harvard Law conference on constitutional reform here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Paul Berger writes: “The reason a politician or any public official shouldn’t just act in opposition to the Constitution whenever they feel like it? How about because they took an oath not to! If you don’t want to play by the long established rules – find a different game. But I’m just a regular guy in the real world and he’s a Georgetown professor writing in the NY Times, which I suppose speaks volumes about both of us.”

It’s beyond even that. Their entire authority comes from the Constitution, and is the only reason we aren’t entitled simply to ignore them, or hang them from a tree for their insolence. Take away that source of authority because you don’t like the constraints it involves, and you’re a lot closer to the tree. Those who think themselves above the law are not in a position to hide behind it.

MORE: On Facebook, Randy Barnett snarks: “I suppose this means the income tax could now be unconstitutional if we can just get 5 votes.”

MORE STILL: Reader Bill Bacon writes: “If, after all, the Constitution isn’t to be followed then doesn’t that mean we default to the Articles of Confederation? Don’t know about you, but I personally like the idea of having to get unanimous consent of the states to raise taxes….” Heh.

Related: New York Sun: The Times Gives Up. “It will be illuminating to see how far the Times takes its latest lament, particularly because these days the Left generally seems to see the Constitution as a threat more to the liberal than the conservative cause.” As I say, that’s an admission of sorts.

STILL MORE: Inevitably.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What I Learned About Beauty From My 56 Hours In Jail.